The younger sibling of decorated distance star Tirunesh, Genzebe Dibaba had a world record-setting indoor season and continues to improve.

Genzebe Dibaba, seen here setting the 2-mile indoor world record in 2014, broke the 5000-meter world indoor record on February 19, 2015.

In the space of 15 days, Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba became the most talked about middle-distance runner on the planet, usurping the attention normally reserved for her elder sister, three-time Olympic gold medalist Tirunesh.

Running alone at the front each time, the 23-year-old obliterated three world indoor records in February: 1500m (3:55.17), 3,000m (8:16.60) and the 2-mile (9:00.48). Although she won the 2012 world indoor 1500m title in Istanbul, she had shown inconsistency in failing to reach the 1500m final at the 2012 Olympics and in finishing a lowly eighth at the 2013 world championships. Now it seems she is a different athlete.

"I'm very surprised I broke the world record in the 1500m," she says, "but I knew I would break the world record in the 3,000m because last year I ran 8:26, and I was not even going for the world record. My coach kept telling me that I could do it, but my confidence was not 100 percent."

The fifth of six children born to farmers near the town of Bekoji, Genzebe moved to Addis Ababa in 2008 to live with Tirunesh and her husband, Sileshi Sihine, a two-time Olympic 10,000m silver medalist. They share a house in a gated community. The support of her family has been unconditional, Genzebe says.

Following the 3,000m record in Stockholm, she returned home for a week. Tirunesh arranged a celebration, a party that also commemorated Genzebe's birthday.

Committed to becoming a champion like her sister, Genzebe makes sure she gets plenty of rest between training sessions. "[Tirunesh] gives me a lot of advice, and I always take her advice because she has been on the top for so many years," Genzebe says. "Sometimes I call her before my race. She is my idol."

Although Tirunesh is training for longer distances–10,000m and the marathon–the two sometimes run together on easy days up in the highlands of Sendafa just outside Addis. At an altitude of 8,000 feet, the air is clean and–apart from the occasional herd of donkeys, goats or cattle–the roads are traffic-free.

Credit for her transformation goes to her coach, Jama Aden, a Somali-born graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Aden is the national coach of Qatar but has been taking his elite group to Addis for three months each winter. It was during the 2012 camp that Sihine introduced Genzebe to Aden and suggested they work together.

Genzebe is the only non-Arabic-speaking member of the group, which includes Algerian Olympic 1500m champion Taofik Makhloufi and 2013 Diamond League 1500m winner Ayanleh Souleiman of Djibouti. She and her coach normally communicate in broken English. But when Aden, whom she calls "Uncle Jama," really wants to get a point across, he solicits the aid of one of his Amharic-speaking colleagues.

Genzebe is capable of running 54 seconds for 400m and 25 seconds for 200m in practice, says her coach.

"She [is a] very hard worker and easy to coach," Aden says. "She can run fast from 800m to 10K. Also, she runs with the big boys during tempo runs, fartlek and in hill workouts and really mixes with them."

The training emphasizes quality, no unnecessary mileage, and lots of drills and biomechanical exercises.

"Jama's training is very hard, and sometimes it's difficult to finish," Genzebe says. "The biggest difference is the hill training and gym. His track sessions are high-quality. But Jama is not just a coach; he is like a father to me. He always tells me that I can run fast and makes me believe in myself."

With the outdoor season looming, it would seem Genzebe has her choice of events. Lowering her personal best 5,000m mark (14:37.56 in Oslo, 2011) would seem a logical goal, but she has more. "My objective is to continue breaking records and of course win the African championships and Continental Cup," she says. "I see [Meseret] Defar as my biggest rival. I plan to run the 5,000m distance because I want to run the Diamond League, but I will also run 1500m."